Pineapple Juice
by SeeMeInTheShadows
Summary: Jim has his own secrets. A new discovery in his little sister's madness leads him to the one place he never thought he would have to return to: Lyoko. Meanwhile, the ever-mysterious Antea Hopper has her own agenda. And what exactly do the Men In Black want with an orphan?
1. October Ninth

A/N: This fic is for the lovely people at XL, the only place I know where you can spend pages talking about Jim being a pineapple on Lyoko. Seriously. I love you guys. I don't think this will be updated often, but I just couldn't resist.

* * *

He remembered her. Red hair in pigtails and a smile that shouldn't have been able to fit on her face. She had made him a bracelet for his thirteenth birthday and had continued until he was twentieth. He had secretly kept them all.

He had loved her. That part hadn't been a secret.

She had loved him too. And then one day, she was gone. They had searched and searched for her, but they only ever met dead ends. Aggi Morales had simply disappeared. The day before she went missing, she had been babbling about some new friend she had just made a few months previously.

But no one could find an Aelita Hopper anyway. Even her father seemed to have mysteriously vanished. Except for Jim. The last person to have seen any of them alive.

So it became a rather mysterious case with lots of theories and no facts to back them up. And Jim only thought he was fooling himself when he remembered the pair of men hanging around his apartment that day, dressed in black and showing no emotion.

As the hope of a safe return got smaller and smaller, they slowly got put out of his mind. Until two weeks later, when he saw them, hovering around the side of his neighbor's door and it all came flooding back.

Nobody could have restrained him even if they were around to try. He stalked over to them and punched the closest man in the face. "Where is my sister?" he growled.

The man smiled, even though his eye was beginning to swell up. "Monsieur….Morales, was it? I can assure you that I have no idea where your little sister is."

"How do you know my name if you weren't involved?"

The other man laughed. "We know everything that happens here, but not where your sister is. Now why don't you run along and play detective somewhere else?"

Jim grit his teeth. "You know what happened to her! You took her!" He lunged at them, which they easily sidestepped. The first man moved behind Jim's back and twisted his arm, holding him in a lock.

"What happened to your sister was a great tragedy, but we have work to do." With a shove, he pushed Jim away, who started walking away, intent on finding what the mysterious men had to do with his disappearing sister.

He had loved her. She had loved him too. He still did. She couldn't.

Jim walked through the white-washed halls, all too used to the hushed conversations and quiet sobs. The workers turned when he walked by and gave him familiar smiles and nods, both to him and what he carried in his arms.

A pineapple.

They had found Aggi. Actually, he had found Aggi, though found is a not the word he would use. She had knocked on his door, wearing different clothes than the ones she had been last seen in, a little over a month and a half earlier. But the clothes were still dirty and tattered and too big for her- especially after she had lost so much weight.

He had wrapped her in a hug and that was when he knew how much she had been shivering. When he finally pulled away (after noticing that she had done nothing to return his hug), she had looked at him with those cool, light eyes and asked, "who are you?"

He brought her inside, just as those eyes started darting back and forth, back and forth. Her breathing picked up and her hands gripped the table he had maneuvered her to so hard that Jim was surprised the table wasn't breaking.

"I don't know who you are," she said. "I don't even know who I am." Her voice was soft and sad. It made Jim's heart break.

"Your name is Aggi. I'm Jim, your brother," Jim said. "You call me Jimbo. Now do you remember?"

She shook her head. "I'm so sorry," she said and Jim ignored the tears running down her face.

He hugged her again and rubbed the back of her head. "It's fine, you've been through a lot." He pulled back to get a good look at her. One eye looked as if it had been swollen shut, she was dirty and grimy, and her face had a couple of old cuts on it.

"Is there anything I can get you? Maybe some food or something to drink?

Aggi turned around and eyed the kitchen. In a bowl, there were some fruits that her eyes hungrily latched on to. Jim got up and brought the bowl to her. She pointed to a pineapple, her favorite food.

Jim smiled and picked the pineapple out of the bowl to cut up. He hadn't had the heart to eat it while Aggi was missing, but now it was time to celebrate. He couldn't help but think that everything would be okay- go back to normal.

It wasn't going to be okay. Things would never go back to normal.

Aggi had eaten two pieces of pineapple cubes when her eyes rolled to the back of her head. Jim didn't own a car, but he gingerly picked her up, fireman style, and ran her to the nearest hospital (which admittedly wasn't far). She had been admitted and while she eventually did physically recover, mentally she never recovered to the state she had been. Even the broken state she had been in that lonely afternoon was a far cry better.

As he further neared the end of the hallway, his steps began to echo off the buildings. It was a lonely sound, but he was used to it. Aggi was, all in all, a lonely girl. Now twenty-two, she hadn't been outside for more than two hours since she was twelve years old.

Every now and again, she would remember the day she came home. They considered that good days. Sometimes, in a blue moon, she would remember something from before she was taken. They considered that a miracle. She never remembered what happened while she was gone.

All they knew is that whatever happened, she had been driven mad.

They had learned enough to know that she did not bring herself home that day. She had been driven to the apartment, and carefully guided by someone to Jim's room. She couldn't remember who had guided her, only the fact that they had never taken their hand off of her shoulder.

She still screamed whenever anyone touched her left shoulder, even just a passing brush.

Today wasn't a miracle. It wasn't even a good day. She smiled when Jim walked in, but it was because of the pineapple held in his arms. She loved pineapples. She still loved pineapples. It was the only thing about Aggi that had remained remotely the same.

She held out her arms, but Jim turned to a small table and cut it up into cubes. Then he pulled a chair closer to her bed. Her room was dark grey, with yellow items and light wood furniture. Her lamp by her bed was a light yellow, as were her comforters and sheets.

Once by her bed, he took the plate and handed her the pineapple piece by piece. She eagerly took them and ate them, alternating between carefully bite by bite and ravaging it like a piranha. When she had eaten enough to be sufficiently full (not very many, as she had just eaten earlier that day), she cautiously allowed Jim to take her hand.

He stroked it, and she seemed to relax. If she didn't recognize her brother, she did recognize the man who came once a week and always brought pineapple. "How is everything, Aggi?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "My name isn't Aggi," she said.

Jim raised his eyebrows and said, "if your name isn't Aggi, then what is it?'

"Alta," she said. She then smiled and burst into a fit of giggles. "Alta, Atla, Atla!"

Jim held out the hand he was not using. "Well I'm Jimbo. Nice to meet you, Alta."

Aggi burst into a fit of giggles and poked him on the nose. Jim smiled and poked her on the nose back, causing her to giggle even more.

This wasn't what it had been like to have a twelve year old sister. But at some time, so long ago he couldn't even remember, this had been Aggi before she had been taken. Minus the new name, of course.

The moment was nice while it lasted, but abruptly stopped when Aggi shrieked. She turned to look at Jim in fear. "They're coming after me!"

"Who's coming after you?"

Aggi ignored his words as she continued to stare into his face, her eyebrows creased together. "They're flying in the air. I don't know what they want!"

Jim reached and grabbed her arms. "Aggi," he said, "what is coming after you."

Aggi's expression quickly morphed into one of hatred. "I'm Alta. Alta Hope! Don't you see them? They're flying in the air, like bees. We've got to get away. Come on, Jim!"

"Wait, Ag- Atla, what did you say?" Jim asked.

Aggi sighed in frustration. "I said, let's go, Jim! They're coming after us, and I'm not sure what you're thinking, but you don't have your head on right. What would mom and dad say if they saw you, standing there like an idiot?"

"Alta, what's my last name?"

And Aggi rolled her eyes and sighed in a way that anyone would sigh at their older brother. "Morales. Don't tell me you have a concussion." She grabbed his hand. "Come on! We have to go!"

Jim smiled and felt hope rise up in his chest. She had never remembered his- their last name before, though her going by this 'Atla' would never be encouraging. She had gone by 'Alta' before. 'Hope' was the most common last name, with 'Surf' being a close second.

He smiled and shook his head as he watched Aggi calm down slightly, sinking back down into her bed, but not before reaching over to grab a piece of pineapple. "It tastes good," she mumbled, licking her fingers.

"I know it does," he said, ruffling her hair. That was a risky move, in and of itself, because half the time she would lean in to it and half the time she would try to eat his hand.

However, this time, she did none of the above. She stayed still, following his arm with her eyes. He leaned in a little closer, and decided to take a risk.

"Where are you right now?" he asked in a whisper.

She didn't respond at first, she continued to watch his forearm instead. Slowly, she lifted her gaze to meet his.

"Here is different."

"Now what do you mean by that?"

Aggi stared at him. "I mean it's different."

"Can you tell me some of the ways that makes here different than there?" Jim asked.

"There is air there," she said, "but you don't breath it."

Jim tried not to stare at her. He really did. She was his sister and he loved her, no matter what she said. He even knew she was crazy, she had known it for almost ten years now. But she had always been a different sort of crazy: switching between acting like the twelve year old she had been and the twenty-one year she was now, creating a new personality for herself, eating pineapple and not remembering him.

Jim could understand all of that. He was used to it, had been for years now. But now, this was different. A different type of crazy. She had never spoken in riddles before.

"What do you mean?"

She turned away. "There is water that is never wet."

She was trying, he could tell that. Her fists were clenched and there was a strain in her voice. But he wasn't wherever she was, and he didn't think she could ever be.

"I have to go now. There's a penkak silat class I need to teach. I love you, Aggi."

He walked out of the room, leaving the pineapple, before he could hear her objections to being called Aggi. Because she was Aggi. His sister. Not some Alta.

And then, as he walked, his mind wandered, and as wandering minds sometimes do, it put the pieces together. Somewhere with water that is never wet.

Water that is never wet.

Halfway down the hall, Jim stopped.

His sister was thinking about something she had never mentioned before. Somewhere that he had been but had tried to put out of his mind, and had been trying for many, many years.

_Lyoko._


	2. June Sixth

A/N: I know this may not seem particularly canon. Bare with me, all will be revealed. I promise.

* * *

For as long as he could remember, there had been two constants in the geography of Jim Morales' life.

One was the old boarding school, Kadic. His family had never been rich enough to afford the luxurious school, not even as a day student. So, if he was being honest to himself, there was a fair amount of contempt he had always held for the students, hanging out at the local cafés and always trying to outloud each other.

The other constant was the factory, one that he had been told to never, ever go near. It was dangerous, apparently, and rumor was if you got too close, men would appear out of nowhere and escort you home and your parents would lose their jobs within the week..

If you ever got home, that was.

So Jim stayed far away from both places (one by choice, the other by good judgment). Even as a young adult, with nothing to lose, force of habit kept him far away from those local spots.

His sister, however, was not as cautious.

In the months leading up to his sister's disappearance, she was spending an inordinate amount of time near Kadic, in the woods. She said her friend's house was there, and she was twelve and old enough to be smart about it. Plus, he had heard rumors of a crazy teacher, living in the school forest.

And who was he to argue with crazy rumors?

However, in the months after her disappearance, he had started to follow the breadcrumbs. First stop: the mysterious teacher: Franz Hopper, his daughter, Aelita and wife Antea (who no one had ever seen), and their little fairytale house in the middle of the woods.

He didn't know what to expect when he finally found the house and knocked on the door. What he found was a beautiful woman with pink hair who pulled open the door. She took one look at him and asked, "Can we help you?"

Jim wasn't sure what she wanted him to say. While he was sure most people didn't get lost searching for some other house or restaurant, he wasn't sure how many people probably got lost in the wood, needing assistance.

So he decided to go with the honest truth.

"Aggi is my sister," he said.

A bright smile lit up Antea's face and she opened the door wider and stepped aside. She motioned for him to step in and not a second after he was in, she picked up a cup of tea she had set down and thrust it into his arms.

"Don't worry, I haven't had any yet," Antea said. She spoke in a wistful and nonchalant way, as if everything she said was a comment about the weather. "And Aggi, I haven't seen her in a while. Aelita loves hanging out with her, and it's so nice that she has someone her own age, she has been rather lonely. More sugar?"

Jim shook his head and sipped the tea. All the sugar in the world couldn't have made him like it more. Even then, he had not been a fan of tea in the loosest sense of the word.

Antea motioned to a chair, and he sat down. She pulled a chair to sit down next to him after she poured herself a tea cup, adding in two small scoops of sugar and a bit of milk. "So, what brings you here but not Aggi?" she asked.

Jim felt his throat tighten up. It had already been almost two weeks, and it wasn't getting any easier. But he hadn't really expected it to. It was his sister.

"Aggi…disappeared," Jim said, "almost two weeks ago, and no one has seen her since. I know she was spending a lot of time over here, and I was wondering, if maybe you noticed something weird, or if she said something about it, or any other weird events."

Antea smiled as she continued to stir her tea. "I've seen lots of weird events, you get used to it when you live with W-Franz." She smiled solemnly into her tea cup and looked back up at Jim, her expression grim. "But I haven't seen or heard anything that I can think of that would help you."

Jim nodded. He couldn't say he wasn't disappointed, but he was slowly losing hope. He would never have none though. Never.

He slowly began to get up. Antea stared at him with a thoughtful expression before saying, "would you mind telling Aelita?" She looked sheepish but continued. "It's just, she's heard all about you and it might be easier for her to hear it from you than me or her father."

Jim didn't know what to say to this except to agree. Aelita had become a large part of his sister's life, he couldn't just leave her in the dark ('actually,' a voice in his head said, 'you can do just that. You lose your sister and people expect you to explain it right and left, like you're not hurting.')

He pushed those thoughts aside and followed Antea through the house, to a closed door. She knocked a few times, and in less than thirty seconds, the door swung open.

Aelita was…adorable. As much as Jim himself (being a twenty year old man and somewhere between macho and mature) tried to limit the word, there was no other way to describe Miss Aelita Hopper. Pink hair and nearly as pink cheeks, a pudgy face that seemed to always be smiling, and squinty yet shining eyes all added to one big, pink-tinted, mess of adorable.

She smiled in delight when she caught sight of her mother, and then opened her mouth slightly in confusion when she saw Jim.

"Aelita," Antea said, "this is Jim."

Jim held out his hand which Aelita hesitatingly shook. "Call me Jimbo," he said gruffly.

He had never seen Aelita before, but just now, seeing her and her room, he could just see her and Aggi, sitting and the floor and playing with dolls and other toys, whispering secrets to each other. This might be where she had made this previous Christmas' friendship bracelet, or come up with the wild stories that she would tell Jim each night when she came home.

"Hello," Aelita said.

"Jim is Aggi's sister," Antea said.

At the mention of Aggi, Aelita quickly turned her complete attention to Jim. He felt as if she was memorizing each and every part of his being and comparing it to Aggi's. But for all he knew, she was wondering if her mom was telling the truth.

She was only twelve, after all. (Or around twelve, he had never asked his sister how old Aelita was.)

"Where is Aggi?" Aelita asked.

Jim opened his mouth to respond instinctively before his brain caught up and he realized that he had nothing to say to that. He didn't know where Aggi was, or he wouldn't be here. She would. And Aelita and she would be laughing and playing and talking about their newfound crushes.

But he was here, and he would have to answer.

"I don't know," he said.

Antea squeezed his shoulder and slowly left, so Jim took a step into her room and sat on her bed. Aelita stared as her mother left the room, and then followed him without saying anything, until she sat right beside him.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

Jim sighed. "Aggi went missing a few weeks ago."

He didn't know what he had expected Aelita to do. Ask questions. Cry. Hell, maybe she wouldn't have understood anything, just stared off into space, uncomprehending. But Aelita was smart, and she was strong, so she sat there quietly.

Finally she responded. "Oh."

She was silent for a moment before she turned to Jim. "She'll be alright though, I think you'll find her."

Jim looked at her and smiled. "I really hope so."

The girl hopped off her bed and walked over to a wardrobe. She opened it up and reached back, focusing with her tongue outside her mouth. Finally, she grabbed what she was looking for and walked over to Jim. It was a small beaded bracelet.

"We were making friendship bracelets," Aelita explained. "And I finished mine since she's been gone. I wanted to give it to her when she got back from wherever she was, but it's been a while, and I think I want you to give it to her right when you find her."

Jim nodded and held on to the bracelet. "I promise, I will," he said.

Aelita smiled and waved as Jim left. He could have sworn he saw her bite her lip and look at him questioningly.

As he walked through the house on his way to the front door, he turned to thank Antea for the tea. She wasn't there, so he started for the exit when he came face to face with another man. The man had dark grey hair, a white lab coat, and mysterious glasses. He smiled when he saw Jim, though Jim couldn't help but feel as if the man was assessing every move he made, ready to find and exploit any weakness. He was panting, as if he had ran back to catch a train and the look on his face seemed as if he had just missed it.

"I'm Jim."

The man held out his hand and shook Jim's. The handshake was curt and firm. "Franz Hopper. Aelita told me what happened to your sister, how tragic. I wish there was something that we could do."

Jim nodded as Franz continued, "if we think of something, we will, of course send you a telephone message. Did Aelita take your number?"

Jim shook his head and wrote his number down on a small pad of paper. In return, Franz handed him a phone number on a separate sheet of paper. Right below the phone number was a four digit sequence.

"Keep that safe," Hopper instructed. "There are a lot of people who would do a lot of things for that number. You never know when you might need it."

Franz nodded and stood a little higher, so that his mouth was right by Jim's ear. "And, I'd rather you not talk about this."

Jim moved his hand to his head. A salute. "I won't," he said. "Also, you teach at Kadic, right?"

"It's an excellent school," Franz said, "and I think it will stay that way, long after I leave. In fact, Aelita is set to enroll there next year, I only hope that she will and will find that she loves it at much as I have." Franz opened his mouth, as if he was going to ask another question, but his mouth quickly clamped shut. As if he had already asked a question and knew the answer and couldn't bear to hear it repeated again.

Jim nodded and as he left the house, Franz called out to him. "By the way, Mr. Morales, what is the date today?"

Jim stopped in the middle of their yard to think about it. "The sixth of June," he shouted back.

He didn't see Franz nod or Aelita walk up to talk seriously to her father. It was beginning to get dark and he wanted to be back before his parents began to worry about him.

* * *

He had called Franz since then, if to do nothing else than to deliver updates on the status of Aggi. (No, they had not found her yet. Yes, he was doing alright. No, there was nothing they could for the Moraleses. Yes, they were still looking). Each time he called, Franz would inquire about the slip of paper that he had given Jim, and each time he called, Jim would assure the man that it was safe and sound in his lockbox.

This seemed to assure Franz, who mentioned one day that he was going to go on a small trip with his daughter. Jim had talked to Franz for a bit about where they were going and how long they would be: casual conversation. The tone was strained, and Jim had to repeat the same question over and over because the other man's mind seemed to be somewhere else, thousands of miles away.

The last thing Franz had said was ask Jim if he still had the sheet of paper. He had hung up after Jim's repsonse, without even saying goodbye.

* * *

Then, weeks later, Aggi had been dropped off, surprisingly intact and relatively uninjured. Her mind was somewhere else, and eventually she was assigned to a small, private clinic that was perfect for mental instability.

She seemed to be happy. Or as happy as she could be. She had smiled when Jim gave her the bracelet. Jim couldn't tell if it was because it was pretty or if somewhere in her mind, she knew that her best friend had made it for her.

It was only a few days after she had been settled in and he had gotten used to idea that he might not be able to ever really see his sister again (what she could have been) when he remembered Aelita, Antea, and Franz.

So he snuck away from his family and walked through the forests until he came upon the lonely house.

Since he had last been there, he learned that they called it the Hermitage. He knocked on the door, only to wait for a few minutes. He knocked again with still no answer.

Jim had grown up in a family of consideration and manners. And in most cases, that meant that if no one answered the door, the correct thing was to go away and try again later. Nowhere had he ever learned the correct way of dealing with an unoccupied house was breaking and entering.

But that's what he did anyway.

It wasn't even that hard.

He had learned a few summers ago how to pick locks from some neighborhood kids, and though his skills were a bit rusty and the Hoppers were sure to have more security, he figured he could apply what he learned and eventually get it. If not, the Hoppers were sure to come home quickly (they had been scheduled to come back from their vacation a few days prior, so Jim knew they were most likely somewhere local).

The door, as it turned out, did not even need to be pick locked. It was unlocked and only needed to be pushed a little bit for it to slowly swing open. Jim reached for the light switch but found they were off and that the sun was quickly receding so he ran back to his house to grab a flashlight.

Upon returning to the house, he saw overturned tables, broken vases, and chairs that had been spread wildly about. On his guard, he continued moving throughout the house, only to see more destruction: almost nothing was left undisturbed. Papers were scattered about on the floor, as if someone was looking for a specific one. Even some of Aelita's dolls seemed to be missing.

The Hoppers were gone and their house had been ransacked.

With that realization, he sprinted out of the house, not even sure which way he was going, until he stopped when he saw buildings. He was right in the very center of the Kadic Academy grounds. There weren't any students- it was vacation, and the campus had a desolate feel to it as the wind slowly blew through the leaves and the sun beat down against his back.

Off in the distance, the very top of the factory could be seen, gleaming a bright color that he had to turn away from.

Franz had worked at Kadic.

And Jim didn't believe in coincidences enough to think that the Hoppers' disappearance (even if only temporary, it had only been a few hours, after all), and the disappearance of his sister to think that they weren't related.

He would get to the bottom of this.

So he headed to the main office of the school and asked for a job.


End file.
